The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-01
PRETTY GOVERNMENT CLERKS.

How They Stick to q Place When They Get
It-Demand for Them Decreasing.
Washington Special
One of the Clvil-service Commissioners is
sponsible for the stateme that the demand for
women in the departments Is steadily decreas-
1.-The ratio of appointments" said the Com
missioner. lis about one woman to seven men.
The principal objection to women lies IN the
fact that as a general rule, you can never get
rid of them No matter how badly they act
how impudent they become, how incompetent
they may be, there they remain.
''What the old Man Of tire Sea- was to Sind
bad the Sailor the average woman clerk Is to the
executive departments at Washington. Before
she secures the place she is all sweetness and
humility. Sixty seventy five ollars a month
would be heaven of delight co ner She
doesn't want any more. She wouldn't knoSv
what to do with It She will work all night =
necessary and try in every way to show her J.
probation of the favor. This Is what she = Is
you.
there three months before she wants promo
ton. She brings to bear ell the influence she
is possessed of to secure it, The promoting
officer is nagged, and harassed, and worried till
she gets it. Then she subsidies till she wants
something else, which she gets by pursuing the
same methods a second time.
IF she is impudent, or lazy. or Indifferent,
and you discharge her, she will not stay dis
charged She will rain tears upon you, and
from every side will come reproaehes and ex
postulations, and heartrending accounts of the
distress. the intense suffering, the agony you
have occasioned. Breadless orphans will be
paraded before your eyes, ragged and distressed,
innocent sufferers on account of your cruelty.
''At last you will commence to believe that
you monster of hideous mien, that you
have been guilty of base meanness to a help
less If not angelic creature, and IN little while
you will relent. apologize, promise to never do
so again, and the woman will resume her desk,
and stays there.
81 have never had any experience Of the
kind. because l could never induce myself to
discharge auyb body man, woman child; but
this is the experience of bureau officers, as they
relate it to me. With a man 1t is different.
Dismiss him and, rule, that is the end
of j."
young women; from eighteen and twenty to
invent -five and thereabouts. As general pro-
position the service they render is satisfactory.
It is their misfortune. however. that they
compelled to suffer along with others of their
sex who are less desirable.
81 think, continued the commissioner. settling
him self more comfortably in his chair that
what may be called the most intricately trouble
some women bureau officials have TO deal with
are divorced women. If | were appointed by a
court referee to decide whether in any such
case the wife or husband was more to blame
could. believe, render an opinion with unerring
exactness after sitting in the same room with
the woman a few months
The fretful. disagreeable qualities
her disposition which led the poor devil of hus-
band to seek a legal separation would inevitably
be exhibited by the woman in the course of her
routine duties. Where the widow is such from
natural causes l think l could tell with equal
exactness whether the dead husband was more
| entitled in his grave to congratulation at his
| happy escape or to regret in having been sepa-
| rated from a good wife and agreeable COM
panion."
Some women. then, make good clerks you
sayq'
'Unquestionably. have several in my mind
| at this moment who cannot be excelled. Since
| type-wrting has into such general use
women have been principally demanded for this
service under the impression, probably that
thew more expert than men. But a change
is going even in this particular, and now the
| demand is daily growing greater for men who are
both typewrlters and stenographers."